I can still recall on the first say of my first graduate level sociological theory class that the Professor, John Bellamy Foster, stated, “So, this term we are going to be studying D.W.M.” And, someone asked, “Does that mean Dead White Men?” And, Foster responded, “Well, yes. But, here we are actually talking about the Holy Trinity: Durkheim, Weber, Marx.” And, of course for John Foster, Karl Marx is at the center of the Holy Trinity where Durkheim and Weber are largely afterthoughts. My cohort and I joked that our two required theory classes should really be called “Marxism I” and “Marxism II”.

In any event, I do believe that my list is biased towards “Dead White Men”. However, I would note that this bias is more the result of centuries of oppression towards women and people of color where these individuals were not permitted to enter the field of sociology rather than a result of my own personal bias.